By Sen. Rick Bennett

The day we arrived at the State House last December to begin the 131st Legislature was a chance to start anew. Fresh off an election, each new Legislature has the opportunity to look at the rules by which it operates and improve upon itself. Unfortunately, this year’s two legislative sessions represented nothing but costly dysfunction for Maine’s people.

Hello, this is Senator Rick Bennett of Oxford County with this week’s Republican Radio Address. At first, I was heartened to hear the Joint Rules Committee would convene this year to look at our rules, some of which are outdated or obsolete. One of the first things I did that day was propose several rule changes, including eliminating concept drafts. In theory, these drafts are working titles only and used in the legislative process to allow the Legislature’s nonpartisan professional staff enough time to research and draft the workable language that formally changes our laws.

Some bills do require more research if several areas of statute are involved or the topic is rather complex, both of which could also have fiscal ramifications. The problem is that too often the raw ideas of a concept draft bill are replaced suddenly by a 20-plus-page amendment of new language at or just before the bill’s public hearing. It’s unfair and unethical when the public doesn’t have time to review it.

So, my early optimism about the chance to address our rules and even the budgeting process itself turned to dismay. Majority Democrats rammed through a partisan budget and introduced several bills this year that reached the point of a public hearing or work session with little to no time for the public to weigh in.

One such bill was LD 1964, the paid family medical leave act. This 19-page bill was printed on May 18 with a public hearing held by the Labor and Housing Committee a week later on May 25.

Then on June 1, a sweeping 17-page amendment to LD 1964 was unveiled just minutes into the work session. It wasn’t available to the public and altered several key aspects dramatically. Therefore, Maine small businesses had no opportunity to analyze it or provide testimony, as should have been done by reporting the bill out as a new draft.

Unfortunately, Democrats have used this bait and switch tactic too often this year. Take LD 1190, for example, which also cleared the same committee that same day. The public hearing for this bill was held nearly two months before on April 6, when business groups testified overwhelmingly in opposition to the bill’s provisions that would affect companies with 250 or more worldwide employees. More onerous were the recordkeeping requirements and fines for failure to do so.

However, the bill laid dormant until an amendment was released just one day prior to the vote; and it would now affect employers with just 10 employees – yes, you heard that right. Again, the public had no chance to weigh in.

Which brings me to a bill that Democrats voted off the Special Appropriations Table late at night with completely different language from what it had originally. According to my colleague Republican Sen. Brad Farrin, who is a construction professional, LD 1895 will drive up the cost of offshore wind projects for Maine ratepayers since unions will be able to dictate how much ratepayers will have to pay in labor costs for these projects.

This comes at a time when we need to do the opposite because of the impact of solar industry subsidies. Yet Democrats rammed that bill through as well this week – on our last day of session – despite my attempt to send it back to committee for a full review and public input.

It’s shenanigans like these, the countless hours of wasted session time and mismanagement of our broken legislative and budget processes that led to this week’s adjournment, a month after we are supposed to adjourn under statute, that may potentially end up costing taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars.

It is long past time for us to fix our broken legislative process.

Again, this is Senator Rick Bennett of Oxford County. I do hope you have a great summer weekend.

Senator Rick Bennett (R-Oxford) represents District 18 and is the Senate Republican Lead on the Appropriations and Financial Affairs Committee. He is also a member of the Legislature’s Government Oversight Committee.